


A Getaway From the Smooth Talk

by just_about_nothing



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Slice of Life, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_about_nothing/pseuds/just_about_nothing
Summary: A brief discussion between two friends, in which one is trying to fight against the forces of his friend's entropy knowing he'll fail.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 3





	A Getaway From the Smooth Talk

**Author's Note:**

> i have no clue what possessed me to write this or how it came about. i know i wrote it in the last six months but i don't remember any of the writing process. it's pretty heavy and i remember being tentative about publishing it because the female character is described to have attempted suicide twice and it's pretty heavily implied she's thinking about it again. 
> 
> TW: Suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts

He looks up at her, his head in her lap. “I think I could love you, given the chance.”

She laughs, a clear sound without the bitter pain he’s heard before. “Oh honey, that’s such a bad idea. You’re so young. And I’m so old.”

“You’re thirty and I’m twenty-seven.”

She cards her fingers through his platinum blond hair. He’s in between colors right now, but he’s thinking of dying it blue next. Her hair is long and thick and has always been brown. 

“You know what I mean. You’re bright and full of life and I’m dying.”

“Stop. Just stop,” he bats her hand away and sits up. “You keep pulling this card. You’re not fucking _dying_ , okay? Just cause there’s been scares in the past doesn’t mean you can keep saying that.”

She smiles, this time with an edge. “Three times the charm and you know it.”

He shuts his eyes, remembering finding her in her bathtub, blood streaming from creamy thighs and wrists. She was twenty six. He was twenty three.

He remembers the time before that, where she’d taken cough syrup to sleep and turned the gas on. She was sharing a house with his ex-girlfriend and she’d been the one to find her housemate slowly turning blue. She was twenty three and he’d just graduated from college. 

Her therapist had once said she had an absolute disregard for her own life and a near obsessive compulsion with keeping other people safe. 

He opens his eyes and decides he doesn’t care. He says so and lays back down in her lap.

She shuts her eyes and remembers how he stayed in the hospital with her the second time. She thinks he’s loved her longer than he knows.

She knows, also, she cannot love him in return. He’s smart and funny and her closest -- and when her demons come calling, her only -- friend. She should love him and cannot. He’s beautiful and charismatic and she _cannot_ love him. She should know, she’s tried.

She says, “You’re very kind,” in her tone of voice that’s reserved for when someone compliments her and she thinks they’re wrong but won’t tell them. He knows that tone, he’s seen it in action with the other boys she’s turned down. 

“Don’t give me that shit.”

“I can’t love you back.”

“I did say ‘given the chance’.”

“You got the chance two years ago,” There. She’s said it. She feels tired all of a sudden and wants to lie down. Her living-room lights are too bright and she thinks a headache is coming on. He’s the only boy she’s ever been able to tolerate for long periods of time and she hopes this conversation won’t ruin that.

He looks up at her. She doesn’t look back down at him. 

“What?”

“When Arianna broke up with you. You spend the weekend. That was the beginning.”

She’s addressing her ceiling fan. He thinks back to that weekend. She’d just moved into her house, a task few of their generation have managed. He certainly hasn’t. She’d managed to save up enough through means he’d never fully understood. Arianna had been his favorite girlfriend and her least favorite. She never told him that, but she also never put in effort into making her feel welcome. He’d crashed in her bed when him and Arianna had called it quits. She slept outside, in the warm California summer nights. He’d liked seeing her in the mornings, sleepily making tea in a nightgown. He realizes she’s probably right. He doesn’t say that. Instead he asks;

“So why argue it? If you’ve known for so long, why are you so against it?”

“Have you read ‘Foothill Boulevard’?” she asks.

“No.”

She gets up and walks to her bookshelf. It’s full and unorganized. She pulls a book off a shelf and he recognizes it as a McSweeneys volume. She’s never been able to afford a subscription but she’ll pick them up in used bookstores when she finds them. This one’s black and white. She flips through it and finds the story she’s talking about and hands the book to him.

He reads it. It’s about a woman renovating a house in Oakland, before it became a haven for tech giants. He knows why she’s bringing it up -- the woman has a True Love, capital letters and all. 

He finishes it and says, “That’s not the same and you know it.”

She says, “You’re missing the point. She’s being disingenuous by being with other people. I know who I am -- I’ve always known who I am -- and so I would also be being disingenuous by being with you.”

He looks at her. They’re sitting side-by-side on her couch now. He sees the dark circles under her eyes and the slight tapping of her foot, a sure sign she’s growing weary. 

He hugs her and after a moment she returns it. When they let go of each other, he says “I would never ask you to be untrue to yourself.”

She smiles. “I know.”

He says, “I don’t want you to love me back. I didn’t even know I loved you before today.”

She says, “I need to sleep now. Are you free tomorrow?”

“Yes. Same time?”

“Same time. Same place?”

They smile. They’ve never seen each other outside her house since she bought the place. It’s an old joke. 

She walks him to his car and watches as he pulls out of her driveway. They don’t say good-bye but she waves to him as he pulls away. He smiles back. 

When she sees him tomorrow, she knows nothing will have changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Waterparks' Crave, off the album (ep?) Cluster.


End file.
